Blissed (Misfit Brides #1) Page 12

  Kimmie rubbed Nat’s back. “Mom had a meeting scheduled with them the other day, but then we had a surprise visit from the health department, and she skipped it.”

  Oh, hell. “Seriously?”

  This was her fault.

  “Uh-huh.” Kimmie’s nose scrunched. “It’s weird, really. We have protocols in place. We practice for surprise inspections. We could’ve handled it without her. But she stayed. And she let them make her toss all the buttercream. You know my mother. She could’ve done some Jedi mind trick and sent the health department people away. I don’t—oh. Oh.” Kimmie’s lips pursed. “Maybe that’s it.”

  “What, menopause?”

  “No, she hasn’t hit that yet,” Kimmie said.

  Good lord. She could still get worse. Natalie shuddered. “Somebody has to do something about that woman. She used to be able to at least pretend she was human. But now she’s just impossible.”

  “Well, since—never mind.” Kimmie spun to the door.

  “Since what?” Lindsey said.

  Kimmie sucked her lower lip into her mouth, then shrugged. “It’s nothing. Just a death in the family recently.”

  “Who?”

  “Distant relative in Chicago,” Kimmie pulled on the door. “Nobody you know. It’s made Mom a little cranky. It’ll pass.” She winced. “Maybe.”

  Lindsey pushed the door shut. “That relative?”

  Kimmie blanched. “Wh-what relative?” she squeaked.

  “Ooh,” Lindsey breathed.

  “What?” Natalie looked between the two. “What?”

  Lindsey hustled Nat and Kimmie into Suckers and toward a quiet booth in a corner away from the rest of the scattered patrons. The soft glow of the purple track lighting welcomed them back to a friendly place where Natalie hadn’t been in far too long.

  “Oh, look, the Bachelors are here,” Kimmie said. Her voice was too high. She slid onto the bench facing the door, craning her neck to look back at Bliss’s minor league baseball players who were crowded at the bar behind them, all laughing at something Natalie couldn’t see.

  Lindsey slid into the booth across from her. “Who got the bakery, Kimmie?”

  “Who—what?” Natalie sputtered. She climbed in beside Kimmie.

  “Keep your voice down,” Kimmie whispered. “How do you know about that?”

  Natalie’s heart hummed faster than her Singer on steroids. “Your mom sold the bakery?”

  So there would be a new owner. New blood on The Aisle.

  New blood on the Knot Fest committee.

  Marilyn Elias’s time was up.

  Oh, God. Did this mean Nat could keep the boutique?

  “Half the bakery,” Lindsey said.

  Kimmie’s eyes were so big they were in danger of falling out. “You do know.”

  “I have good sources,” Lindsey said. “And, quite frankly, I’m tired of your mother bullying my baby sister. So give me a good reason to keep this to myself.”

  Her apologetic tone was probably meant to take the bite out of the threat, but Kimmie went paler.

  Natalie leaned into both of them. She was breathing too fast and her hands were getting shaky, but she didn’t care.

  The QG’s reign could be over.

  Kimmie fidgeted with the zipper on her jacket, not making eye contact with Nat or Lindsey, her own breath uneven and her voice strained. “Didn’t you ever wonder where she got the money to pay for so much of that first Knot Fest after the flood?”

  Natalie’s breath whooshed out on a single syllable. “Oh.”

  “She’ll do worse than salt my caramels if she finds out you know.” Kimmie sounded near tears. “She was going to buy it back, but Knot Fest didn’t come back as strong those first two years, and it turned out the bakery’s flood insurance wasn’t enough to cover repairs, so Mom had to do something. She almost had enough saved up to pay off the debt, but then cousin Birdie bit the beaters, and—well, Birdie’s will was… surprising.”

  “Heaven’s Bakery has a new owner.” Natalie could barely breathe, but she pushed the words out.

  “Half owner. Uninvolved. In the bakery.”

  “How uninvolved?” Natalie leaned closer. “Is the new owner willing to get involved? Kimmie, how much do you know about running Knot Fest?”

  Kimmie’s cheeks were taking on her signature jagged flush. “You know what? I need a drink. Do you guys want a drink?”

  She twisted in the booth, raised her hand, but then Lindsey spoke. “We won’t tell anyone.”

  Nat gawked at her sister.

  Not tell anyone?

  They would tell everyone. The QG didn’t own the whole bakery. She was a fraud.

  And if she was a fraud, she didn’t have any power.

  “Stop, Nat,” Lindsey said. “When word gets out that she sacrificed half her bakery for Bliss, she’s the hero. So yes, we are keeping this to ourselves.”

  Natalie’s jaw clenched so tight she felt it all the way down in her toes.

  Why did Marilyn Elias always come up smelling like chocolate buttercream? “She can’t treat people the way she does,” Natalie hissed.

  “And you need to focus on what you can fix and let go of what you can’t.” Lindsey pulled her coat off and set it in the booth beside her. “You want to show the old bat what you’re made of? Be the bigger person. Keep getting your job done despite her. Do something she can’t.”

  “And what, exactly, can’t the Queen General of Bliss do?”

  “She hasn’t talked CJ Blue into playing in the Golden Husband Games yet, has she?”

  Was she kidding?

  No.

  No way in hell would Natalie convince CJ to play in Mom’s Games.

  Her face, her ears, even her hair went hot. So did some of her dormant parts. “What is wrong with you tonight?” she hissed at her sister.

  “Mom’s last Games, Nat. What would she want?”

  Dangerous question. “She’d want someone more capable than Bonnie and Earl running the Games.”

  “Natalie…”

  Nat slunk back in the booth.

  Mom would want CJ to play. Not only that, she’d ask him to do interviews with the Chicago Tribune. Get something picked up by the Huffington Post. Use his status as a war widower to leverage more publicity for the Games.

  Though Mom, of course, would’ve had a softer touch than the QG was capable of.

  “Are you sure you’re doing this for Mom?” Lindsey said, gently as if she were talking to Noah.

  Natalie squirmed. “I’m doing it for Mom and Dad.”

  Which meant she needed to respect the damn Queen General and be a good little in-the-shadows divorcée. No more calling in health department violations. No talking back. No making waves.

  There had to be a better way.

  “I’m supposed to flaunt my wares to convince him to play,” Kimmie said, wincing. “If you could—you know—instead, that might be better. More effective.”

  Natalie sputtered out a laugh she didn’t feel. “You want me to flaunt my wares for him?” As if she hadn’t already. Then nearly broke when he rescued Cindy.

  “If it’ll work,” Lindsey said lightly. “There’s something to be said for psychological victories.”

  She was right.

  If Natalie wanted to save the Games for Mom, she needed to make sure CJ played. “Yeah, and how about while I’m at it, I go ahead and offer myself as his stand-in wife.”

  “Mom would mix your nuts.” Kimmie ducked her head again. “She has this crazy idea that he’ll ask me to do it. Once we convince him to play.”

  Natalie shouldn’t have cared one way or another who anybody played with in the Games, but the thought of Kimmie and CJ on the Husband Games field, together, competing in married couple events, rolled her stomach.

  Lindsey’s attention shifted to Natalie, perceptive and probing as only a big sister could be. “Miss Junior Bridesmaid all over again.”

  Natalie shuddered, and hoped Lindsey wouldn’t figure
out Natalie’s real fear wasn’t that she’d come in second to Kimmie, as she had years ago during Bliss’s annual teenage talent show, but rather that she’d be jealous of Kimmie. In their school days, Natalie had been a big enough shit to hold it against Kimmie that Marilyn was her mother, which had caused problems more than once between Mom and the QG. Nat liked to think she’d grown up a little since then.

  Kimmie was not only a good friend, she was as pure and innocent as her mother was queenly and General-ish. Kimmie deserved the kind of guy who would wade into a splash pad in fifty-degree weather to rescue a stuffed dinosaur.

  Kimmie’s mouth hinged open, and she suddenly slapped a hand to it. “Oh, Nat,” she groaned through her fingers. “Me being friendly with him won’t be awkward for us, will it? After—you know. Your history. It feels… disloyal.”

  Natalie blinked.

  Kimmie knew about the kiss?

  How the hell did anyone other than Natalie and CJ know about that kiss?

  She threw her hands up in surrender. “Oh, no. You can have him,” she said, perhaps with more force than the situation warranted.

  Especially since Lindsey’s eyes went narrower and her lips parted softly into a semblance of an amused, you’re-going-to-regret-that smile.

  And suddenly Natalie realized exactly what Kimmie thought was awkward.

  The first kiss. The public one. The one Natalie had spent the last five years regretting.

  Kimmie gave a snorty laugh. “Like you’d want him, right? That would be awkward.”

  “Exactly.” Relief fueled Natalie’s fake laugh. “Can you imagine? Oh, yes, CJ, I’d love to be your temporary wife. Especially since it’s your fault my son doesn’t have a father.”

  A glass of what looked suspiciously like whiskey sour plopped down on the table in front of Natalie, and Lindsey sucked in a breath.

  Natalie half-choked on her own spit.

  Large, manly fingers were wrapped around the glass. Large, manly fingers that weren’t dark enough to be Jeremy’s.

  “Evening, ladies,” a large, manly, not-Jeremy voice said. A familiar, large, manly voice that echoed through Natalie’s body, from her roots to her toenails and every place—every place—in between.

  She couldn’t look up. Her face ignited so hot her skin should’ve melted off.

  Kimmie made a sound between a horrified squeak and a guffaw. Lindsey had gone mute.

  Oh, God. Oh, shit. Natalie had to leave. If the QG heard—

  No. Fuck the QG. Fuck probation. This was Natalie’s bar. This was Natalie’s home.

  She was staying. She was having a drink, and she’d damn well finish planning the Golden Husband Games even if Marilyn Elias banned her from the face of the whole fucking earth.

  Once she got over her mortification at getting caught mocking CJ right to his face.

  Again.

  “Friday night, I dreamed you were a mushroom,” Kimmie sputtered into the silence. “You make a much better llama. Is it weird that I keep dreaming about you?”

  “You kidding?” he said. “It’d be weird if you didn’t.”

  The friendly smile in his voice made Natalie like him a bit more, which made her hate herself a little more.

  He nudged the glass in front of Natalie. “Whiskey sour.”

  A glass of white wine appeared, followed by a milky drink with a pink tint in a martini glass. “White zin. And a Kimmie colada.”

  “No rum, right?” Kimmie said. “It makes me break out. And recite dirty poetry. Badly.”

  “No rum,” CJ said. “Extra coconut and grenadine.”

  “Wow. You really know how to make a woman happy.” She winced out loud, as only Kimmie could do. “I mean with their drinks. That’s all I meant.”

  “I have a ninety-eight percent success rate with always knowing what will make a woman happy,” he said.

  Lindsey chuckled softly. “And how do you quantify that?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know,” he said.

  Nat wanted to know. She shouldn’t have wanted to know, but she hadn’t caught a whisper of him all week, and he was being flirty and relaxed and friendly despite what he had to have heard. She couldn’t help herself. She wanted to know.

  She risked a glance at Lindsey. Her older sister was giving Natalie a speculative look she generally reserved for nights of playing “Does This Couple Stand a Chance?”

  Lindsey liked to claim she could see when a couple was a bad match. She had an uncanny success rate of predicting splits, but she rarely put effort into playing matchmaker. She claimed it didn’t work that way.

  That she was still looking back and forth between CJ and Natalie wasn’t good.

  Not good at all.

  It meant she hadn’t spotted whatever she needed to spot in order to guarantee this couple didn’t stand a chance.

  This was bad. Very, very bad.

  Natalie shoved her mortification back into that little box in her mind where she’d stored half of the last five years of her life, then put on her game face and looked up at CJ. His shoulders were extra broad in his green muscle shirt tonight; his biceps nicely showcased in his sleeves; his short hair still long and unkempt enough to give a girl dirty thoughts. “Thank you,” she choked out.

  His gaze locked on hers. Her throat went dry at the spark of a challenge lurking in the quirk of his lips.

  As if he were challenging her to say it one more time—that he wrecked her marriage—to his face.

  “For the drink.” Natalie’s face threatened to erupt in flames again, but she’d be damned before she’d let him see her sweat.

  Again.

  Not that she didn’t deserve to sweat.

  “Can we get some nachos please?” Lindsey said.

  CJ held Natalie’s gaze an eternity longer than he needed to. “Already on their way.”

  “Not bad for a new guy,” Lindsey said.

  “Got orders to take good care of you.” He still hadn’t looked away from Natalie, and she felt more heat rising, except this time it was nowhere near her face.

  It was much, much further south.

  “You ladies enjoy your drinks. Food will be out in a few.”

  He walked away, and Natalie buried her face in her hands.

  “Don’t tell my mom I said that thing about rum and the poetry, okay?” Kimmie said.

  Lindsey sank back into her side of the booth. “Honey, we’re not telling anyone anything that just happened here.”

  And thank the holy heavens that neither of them asked Natalie to explain it either.

  CJ WAS UNLOADING a tray of glasses from the under-the-bar dishwasher when Lindsey strolled back through the front door and headed straight for him. She wore the look of a woman who took his participation in her latest harebrained scheme as a foregone conclusion.

  Hell.

  Yeah, hell. That’s exactly what this shift had turned into the moment she’d walked in his door.

  And it had nothing to do with her, and nothing to do with Kimmie.

  It had everything to do with her loudmouthed, sharp-lipped, wounded-eyed sister.

  Lindsey swung her hips onto the stool closest to him and gave him a smile he’d seen a thousand too many times from his sisters. That smile never ended well.

  “Could you do me a favor?” she said.

  No right answer for that question, and he’d bet she knew it. “Depends on the favor.”

  She plopped a wallet on the bar and gave him a look of innocence that, fortunately, didn’t come close to touching his sister Cinna’s. Otherwise he might’ve fallen for it. “I found this in the parking lot and was hoping you’d know how to return it to its rightful owner.”

  It was a girly canvas number, pink with a strained black zipper, bulging as if its owner cleaned it out only after it burst while she was juggling groceries and a hungry, whiny four-year-old after a long day of work. Which he was able to picture less because he’d had that much experience with women, and more because he’d seen Natalie wrestle cas
h out of it fifteen minutes ago after refusing to hear that their bill was on the house.

  Jeremy’s orders, seconded by Huck, who had apparently used Lindsey’s services once or twice. Maybe more, after he wised up and started getting prenups.

  “How’d you get that?” CJ asked.

  “Found it in the parking lot,” she repeated.

  “You know whose that is.”

  “I don’t peek in wallets.” She flashed him a smile that was remarkably friendly. “Hazard of being a lawyer. Nobody trusts us. But a bartender—everyone trusts you.”

  Her straight face was impressive.

  “Not everyone,” he said.

  “If that’s how you feel, you should consider giving everyone a second chance to learn to trust you. They might surprise you.”

  “I think you’re full of shit.”

  That earned him a full-on grin. “Appreciate the help.” She swung herself down from her stool. “I’d return it myself, but I have to be at work early tomorrow. Long drive home still.”

  “What’s your game?” he called after her.

  “I hear you’re a fairly smart guy when you’re not trying to kill yourself jumping out of airplanes. You’ll figure it out.”

  It wasn’t until after she’d sashayed herself out the door that he picked up the wallet.

  And noticed the gift certificate with Bob and Fiona’s name on it. She’d paid for three months of maid service. His in-laws would appreciate this as much as they’d appreciated his work around their house the last week.

  Son of a bitch. She could teach his sisters a thing or two.

  “What’s she want?” Huck asked.

  CJ pocketed the gift certificate, then held up Natalie’s wallet. “Found this in the parking lot.”

  Huck tilted his head, making his left eye bulgier than his right. “That her sister’s?”

  “Looks like.” CJ pried it open carefully as he could and worked out a credit card that was clearly stamped with Natalie’s name. He slipped it back inside and zipped the wallet. “Yep.”

  “Heh.” The grin on the old man’s face wasn’t endearing. He slapped CJ on the back. “Thought she had that look about her.”